Against All Odds by Glenn Stout

Author:Glenn Stout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Houston Rockets forward Tracy McGrady (1) shoots over the San Antonio Spurs' Bruce Bowen (12).

THE LONG SHOT

TRACY McGRADY

NBA STAR FORWARD TRACY MCGRADY, known to basketball fans as “T-Mac,” had it all. Well, almost all.

At the end of the 2003–2004 season, McGrady was at the top of his game. Already a three-time All-Star, McGrady had led the league in scoring for two consecutive seasons, most recently with an average of more than twenty-eight points a game, including a career high of an astounding sixty-two points in one game. SLAM magazine had already ranked McGrady as one of the “top seventy-five players of all time.” As adept at dunking the ball as he was at shooting from behind the three-point arc, at six foot eight and quick as a cat, T-Mac could do just about anything on a basketball court well.

Off the court he was just as successful, earning millions of dollars a season, living in an enormous house, taking care of his children and family, and giving money to a variety of charities. At the age of twenty-five, McGrady was at the peak of his career.

Yet there was one thing Tracy McGrady did not have—the respect of his peers and the NBA fans. While everyone acknowledged his talent, for all his skills, some questioned whether he made his team better. As one NBA general manager said, “A superstar is defined by wins, by making players around him better and by making the team better.” Tracy McGrady had not quite done that. In seven NBA seasons his teams had often been a disappointment, not winning as often as they should and not advancing very far in the playoffs. Although the perception didn’t tell the whole story—basketball is a team game and the impact of one player, even a superstar, is limited—even McGrady admitted that he had something to prove. “I’m not going to say I played my hardest every night,” he said later of his performance one season. “Some nights I did slack off, and I knew that was a terrible thing to do.” He knew there was only one way to earn the respect he craved—by proving it on the court.

***

One reason Tracy had yet to do that may have been his upbringing. Growing up in Auburndale, Florida, Tracy had to learn to do many things by himself. His mother, Melanise, raised Tracy without much help from his father. A maid at Disney World, she and Tracy lived with her mother, Tracy’s grandmother.

Tall and wiry, Tracy was just a young boy when he fell in love with sports, particularly baseball. In Little League he was a great hitter and a terrific pitcher. He dreamed of pitching in the major leagues.

In fact, Tracy was so focused on baseball that he didn’t even take basketball very seriously, another reason why it might have taken him a bit longer than some other players to learn to play the game and be a good team player. Oh, he liked to play basketball with his friends, but he didn’t study the game the same way he did baseball.

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